Then December rolled in with
it’s contemplating chilled breath,
like an angry drunk,
smacking me around,
lying me down.

January inebriated me
with its Atlantic breeze.
But I showed no
remonstrance.

February just hit my face
harder–paralyzing it–
again and again–then,
it cracked my porcelain
bone. And I crashed
once more.

I laughed at her though,
laughed and threw my finger up!

Then, I asked, I
crawled, I begged
April,
“Will you be kind to me
dear April?”
because March had been
so cruel, because
I didn’t know my own
will, my own strength–
two poets dead,
one beside a bed we’d
shared. He had been
the one I loved.
The other, I admired.
(how funny for a poet to
be dead)

One had lost control too many
months before; that one was
a mystery.
The other, a man of his people,
faced death a year ago–death
came in the shape of an
idiot’s pistol.

April was warmer;
she held my head up,
gave me water, refilled me,
showered me as I drained. She
carried me by her teeth like
a bitch carrying her pup
to safety.
But I was a disoriented pup,
loose skin still
too stretched
to move.

And May.
May,
what did she say?
I haven’t heard.
I’ve gone deaf.
What should I ask of
you my May, when I’ve
lost nearly all sense?

As I search franticly
for more questions to
collect, I cannot ask her
to be kind to me,
no, not like April.
How could I,
when I haven’t been
so to myself?

Facundo Cabral was a singer/songwriter/poet and activist from Argentina. One of my favorite folk singers. He was shot last year. Not long before that, he’d done a free concert for peace in Colombia.

And well, the other “poet”, Monkey Man L. … if you’ve read much of my blog, you know about that one. I think it’s really helped the grieving process to write about him on here, so please forgive me in advance if I don’t shut up about L.

********

This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It’s not his original but his rendition of it is my favorite. It’s called, “Thanks to Life” or “Thanks Be to Life”. Here’s a translation of the lyrics: http://www.williammorin.com/graciasalavida.html

Oooh look. An illustrated one, LIVE version duet with some other singy dude named Edwardo Soto, oh, and a PIANO! A PIANO!

And this is one of his many sarcastic poems about humanity’s idiocies and follies. “Pendejos” means something akin to “dumb asses” or “idiots” and so on and so forth.

I like the duet version better – it has more depth. Unfortunately, the lyrics are pretty lost on me – as my spanish SUCKS. Yes, I took 3 years in school and worked on a farm that spoke predominately spanish (one flavor or another) but it never sunk in.

BUT that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the music/feeling of the music and the way the words flow. I listen to a whole host of different kinds of music. Ambient, punk rock, hard rock, goth, bollywood, opera (anything really). The great thing about music, is that it is universal – you don’t have to understand the lyrics to appreciate it 🙂